Right now we are allowing chemical companies to manipulate our food supply for their financial gain at our expense. Hawaii is being used as a laboratory for companies like Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF, and others to conduct tests for Genetically Modified Organisms. There is no oversight and no control over the spread of these GMOs. There is absolutely no proof they are safe for people, animals, or the environment; and in fact, quite the opposite. GMO crops contaminate heritage, conventional and organic produce with their novel genetic materials and proteins. Every year their patent holders sue farmer’s for “trespass” when patented DNA invades the fields and bodies of plants and animals whose owners do not wish to grow GMOs, but whose land and flocks/herds are contaminated by the unwelcome intrusion of such GMO material. Foreign DNA creates super bugs and pests which are resistant to known methods of control, but which induce farmers to use increasing amounts of the pesticides and herbicides to which their creating companies have made them resistant when they were genetically modified. The result is increasing chemical use and decreasing control. The human body, and the probiotic, beneficial bacteria upon which it depends for immune and nutritional integrity, has no evolutionary experience and therefore no ability to detoxify GMO genetic material, bacterial markers and other GMO contents, nor the increasing exposure to toxic chemicals that the GMOs were deigned to withstand, through food, water and air exposure. The insertion of foreign DNA into the bodies of humans, bacteria, plants and animals threatens the long-term integrity of the human genome and normal functioning of the human immune system. No scientific studies show that GMOs are either safe or benign while all independent science shows that they are dangerous for the consumer and the environment. Although the FDA accepts a principle of “substantially equivalent”, GMOs have never been shown to be substantially equivalent since their DNA is substantially different. GMO feed transfers foreign DNA into the animal consuming it and then into humans consuming it. The impact of foreign proteins, different in different cells of the same body, coded for by foreign DNA, is unknown. The cost of DNA seeds and animal use permits or licenses can be set at any level, changing the economics of food production substantially, to the disadvantage of the small or independent farmer. Hundreds of thousands of cotton farmer suicides in India attest to the dangers of this public policy. Most GMOs are created in order to confer resistance to heavy chemical input. The chemicals are therefore used in greater abundance leading to increased contamination of soil and water and decreased crop yield, according to the consensus of scientific evaluation of GMO technology on food and farmers. Every independent study conducted of GMO impact and safety shows massive health and genetic problems including, but not limited to:

Bacteriological: Marker DNA conferring antibiotic resistance is inserted into GMOs. This marker DNA transfers not only to human and animal DNA, but to bacterial DNA as well, creating new classes of antibiotic-resistant DNA and new diseases;

Pathophysiological: Small Kidneys, Punctate GI Walls and Membranes, Hair Growth on the Mucosal Surfaces of the Body;

GMO seeds cannot be saved legally so farmers are prevented from using ancient cost-saving, and stock-improving practices. Local control over local activities, such as food production and consumption, should be in the hands of local consumers and producers through local regulations if they so desire. These companies use open air testing which can and does contaminate the non-GMO plants. Once the non-GMO plants are contaminated, we cannot go back and our food supply will forever be contaminated.

Council Members, please vote to Approve the Prohibition of GMOs in Hawaii. We must stop the spread of these GMOs now, our food supply, our economy, and our lives depend on it!